By far, your biggest challenge, when it comes to migrating from Excel 2003 toExcel 2010, will be getting accustomed to the new fluent user interface.We're going to start here in Excel 2003 with a worksheet open.You can see the name right here on the Title bar, TT Billing Statement1,and it's an XLS file.We're just going to take a quick peek at the user interface, things you may beused to, such as the Menu bar, which has menu headings and under those headingsare related commands.So, if we go, for example, to the File menu and click, we see file-relatedcommands, all of the commands related to working with a file, creating new ones,opening, closing and so on.

If we go to the Format toolbar, we'll see formatting options, and some ofthese will have submenus.So, you can see how it might take quite a while to get accustomed to this userinterface, trying to find the commands which you're looking for, and that's whyMicrosoft decided to go with a fluent user interface in Excel 2010.You do have toolbars in Excel 2003, like the Standard toolbar, with some morecommonly used commands that appear as buttons.You've even got different types of toolbars, like the Formatting toolbar for allof your formatting commands, but when we switch over to Excel 2010, thingschange drastically.

We still have the Title bar at the top, displaying the name of the filewe're working with;in this case, it's the same name, but a different extension.This is the new format that we work with in Excel 2010.It has the XLSX extension, and you'll notice there's really only one toolbar;it's the Quick Access Toolbar up here on the top left-hand corner by default.It contains a few buttons by default.You can add buttons here.These would be commonly used commands that are not at your fingertips on theRibbon, which appears down below. And the Ribbon is designed to give you thetools you need when you need them. They are at your fingertips. And the Ribbonis organized into tabs,so you can see here with the Home tab selected, we've got a variety ofdifferent groups of commands.

For example, we've got the Clipboard here, where you'll see Cut, Copy and Pasteand the Format Painter.You've got Font and Alignment commands, typically found under the Format menu oron a Formatting toolbar, but they're here at your fingertips.Same thing goes for Number formatting.Then you've got Styles, and so on.Now, when we go to tabs, such as the Insert tab, you're going to see everythingyou can possibly insert into a spreadsheet:tables, illustrations, charts have their own group here, and you'll notice thatsome of these groups have their own little icon in the bottom right-hand cornerthat allows you to expand this and open up a dialog box.

So, let's try it here with Charts, and you can see now we get the Insert Chartdialog box with everything possible here when working with charts.We'll just click Cancel for now.And we've got other groups here, some new things like Sparklines, which youdidn't have access to in Excel 2003.You've got text commands here and symbols and so on.Now, the one thing that's slightly different here from the rest of the Ribbon is the File tab.You'll notice, first of all, it's highlighted in green, and this takes us to a newview called Backstage view.Now, we saw in Excel 2003, if we go back, we did have a File menu in the topleft-hand corner and clicking this displayed all of those File-related commands,including an option to Exit the entire program at the bottom.

Now, when we go back to Excel 2010 and click the File tab, we go to Backstageview, and it changes your view completely.We do see File-related commands here, Save, Open, Close.You can see we've got options to view recently worked on files, create new ones.There is Exit down at the bottom, but when we select these different options, wesee a different layout to the right.So, with Info selected, we're going to see information about the filewe're working with.We also see some options for protecting and checking for issues and so on, andover on the right-hand side, there is that information about the current file.

If we go to another option from Backstage view, like Save As for example, youcan see this actually opens up the Save As dialog box, where we can work withthis file and save it to different format, something we'll talk about alittle bit later on.So, we'll click Cancel.Let's just quickly go back to Backstage view by clicking the File tab one moretime and try something different.For example, if we go to Print, this looks very different;we're going to see a preview of the file we're working with,we're going to see a Print button, and options for printing, such as changing thecopies, the printer we're working with, and all of those print settings are allavailable to you here at your fingertips.

So, it's a different way of working, but I would say that if you were learningExcel 2003 and Excel 2010 at the very same time and using them for the veryfirst time, you would learn the commands quicker here in Excel 2010, the way theuser interface is laid out.To exit Backstage view, you simply click the File tab again, and it takesyou back to your work.So, absolutely this will be your biggest hurdle when it comes to getting usedto the new Excel 2010.If you're migrating from Excel 2003, you will find, however, that it does nottake long to get used to the new Ribbon, and it's fully customizable, as well.

So, something to consider when moving forward.

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Released

8/3/2010

In Migrating from Excel 2003 to Excel 2010, author David Rivers walks through the switch to Excel 2010 from Excel 2003. The course covers key differences in Excel 2010, including the Ribbon interface and the Office Open XML file format, and shows how to perform common Excel 2003 tasks in Excel 2010. Exercise files accompany the course.